The relationship between ASO and your mission
SDP has already set itself apart as a software development company by focusing an entire product on the needs of the psychosocial intervention community: ASO. ASO seeks to better support the workforce that responds to our society's psychosocial needs by equipping them with software solutions that make work simpler and better organized. This month, we explore Dean's (2015) thesis, which explores how technology and the psychosocial environment are linked.
What promotes successful integration into a psychosocial environment?
In his thesis, Dean (2015) seeks to demonstrate that technological innovations and their adoption in psychosocial settings are not entirely the result of policies imposed by funding agencies, but that the settings themselves are involved and invested in the process of evolving the technological tools used. His research focuses in particular on women's shelters. Among the many conclusions set out in his thesis, we will focus on a few key points:
- Specific features of each field
- The role of organizations in decisions concerning their platform
- Collaboration with technology solution experts
ASO and its multiple product lines
Dean (2015) draws our attention to the fact that each field is unique and so are its technological needs. Indeed, she uses the example of women's shelters, which struggle with a specific phenomenon where the intersectionality of the clientele, government policies, available services, the evolution of knowledge, and many other factors create very specific needs. The same applies to every psychosocial field.
The SDP team recognizes that a single technological solution cannot address the multitude of field realities unique to each area we serve: family violence shelters, suicide prevention centers, CALACS, crisis centers, family resource centers, SIVs, men's centers, proche aidance, street cafés, and many other community initiatives. For this reason, each field has its own ASO product line with a selection of sections, dashboards, reports and other tools to meet the specific needs of each field.
Giving organizations the space to act as experts on their reality
Dean's thesis attributes great importance to the involvement of field teams in the process of implementing a technological solution in their resource. In particular, it is mentioned that greater involvement of the intervention resource in the various stages of implementation and customization of their tool improves the results of tool use. What's more, greater involvement also increases ownership of the platform.
At SDP, we encourage the involvement of field teams in our operations in several ways. Several meetings are scheduled with the intervention team to review the methodology and tools currently used in the various services we offer. Our team therefore works in collaboration with clinical teams to offer a powerful and effective tool that maintains all the essential elements according to the people who will be using it. In some areas, we have now completed a sufficiently large number of implementations to even be able to advise on certain decisions based on our teams' field experience.
The SDP team and collaboration with customer resources
SDP is proud to count on a multidisciplinary team that provides support from sales to implementation and customer service. We have a fine balance of staff from a variety of backgrounds, including psychosocial. In fact, many of us have long been involved in psychosocial intervention in various roles: intervention, training, clinical coordination, management, board of directors.
Dean (2015) puts forward the perception that intervention professionals may have: technology professionals don't really understand what fieldwork is all about. We firmly believe that the composition of our team gives us the opportunity to more quickly grasp the issues and particularities of each of our psychosocial clients. Many of our customers have also told us how much easier it is to build trust with technology experts who have significant knowledge of psychosocial work.
Bibliography
Dean, J. S. (2015). Examining social work and technology: A cross-disciplinary analysis of technology issues in violence against women shelters in Ontario, Canada (Doctoral dissertation). University of Edinburgh. Retrieved from https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/19477
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